There But for the Grace
by Audrey Lynne
Summary: Written for the fic4radek ficathon. Radek is trapped and slowly losing his mind...and he's going to strangle Rodney when this is over. Includes Grace Under Pressure spoilers.


_**There But for the Grace...**_

_By Audrey Lynne_

_I blame part of this on Kyrdywn, whose comment in an IM one night about Radek stuck somewhere alone and hallucinating Teal'c put ideas in my head. Be very glad I disregarded most of those ideas, because some of them were kind of scary. Trust me, you're better off not knowing.) But once I got past the chocolate-aided silliness, the plot bunnies started multiplying, and well...this is the result._

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Czech translations -

_Bez pen__ěz do hospody nelez_. - Don't go to the pub without money.

_Co je doma, to se po__čítá_ - What's at home, counts.

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Things were not all "peaches and cream," as the saying went, in the Pegasus Galaxy. There were good days and bad. The good days were fantastic--new discoveries, unlocking the secrets of Atlantis, finding technology far beyond anything Atlantis' scientists could have dreamed up. The bad days, however, were _bad_. Even when it wasn't the Wraith knocking on their door, when things went wrong, people often died. That part of being in Pegasus, Radek had never liked. He disliked it even more when he was the one who was going to die. As far as bad days went, this wasn't quite at the level of the Wraith siege of Atlantis, but it ranked pretty high.

Radek was an adventurous soul when it came to Atlantis--he'd willingly explore any part of the city. When it came to other worlds, however, with their unknown dangers and the possibility of enemy ambushes? He was happy to pass. Let Rodney go out into the field and do his thing; he liked it. Radek was content to mind the store while Rodney was gone and the rest of the time, he still had no great desire to join a team out in the field unless it became necessary. But Major Lorne's team had asked for him, he had gone with them, and now he was going to die here. All in all, it was a wonderful example of exactly why he _didn't_ like to go off-world.

While the major's team had made nice with the locals, Radek had set out to follow the trail of an energy signature they were picking up, one that might have meant hidden technology. The natives had assured them the area surrounding the camp was safe for at least "a day's journey," and Radek hadn't intended to go that far on foot. With no wild animals known to live in the vicinity, friendly villagers, and nothing threatening about the levels they were reading, Radek had thought he would be safe on his own and he'd managed to convince Lorne of such. After all, Radek didn't need or particularly want a babysitter, one who was likely to be bored, at that. Radek was sure he would be safe. He'd been wrong. There might not have been any wild animals, but the people in the village had neglected to mention unstable rock formations. Radek had been walking along a marked path--to where, he didn't know, but at the time, it was going in the same direction as the energy signature he was tracking. When his trail and the path diverged, Radek had radioed back to Lorne to report his location, mentioned he was departing from the marked path, and checked to make sure the terrain looked firm. That was where he had made his mistake. It only _looked_ firm.

The geologists back on Atlantis would have been thrilled to discover that the seemingly lush terrain on either side of the path was one of nature's clever ways of disguising the rock underneath. Even more fascinating from a scientific standpoint, whatever the rock was, it was apparently pretty fragile, because while a "normal" rock shelf would have supported Radek's weight, this one hadn't. And the best part--geologically speaking? That fragile rock shelf was the ceiling to an underground cavern--not a very big one, but Radek suspected there were more of them. How many more, he would leave for the geologists to determine. They would probably be beside themselves with glee, the way Radek and Rodney were when they found a really great new piece of Ancient technology. It was really unfortunate Radek had never taken any great interest in geology, because if he had, he might have found something scientifically intriguing about his current predicament. As it was, he just wanted to get the hell out of there and go home.

Unfortunately, Radek knew he was well-hidden from view, and when he looked up, it was apparent that the rocks above had caved in around him. The only thing that had saved him from being completely buried was an outcropping of the cavern above him, which had caught one of the bigger pieces of rock. That piece in turn had gotten wedged in place and kept the rocks above it from raining down on Radek. While he was grateful, he knew he still wasn't in the clear. That big piece of rock might go at any time. The cavern Radek was in appeared to consist of just the one room, so there was no going anywhere even if he could have moved--his left leg was pinned beneath a sizeable pile of smaller rocks and he was sure he had cracked a couple of ribs in the fall, because the side of his chest hurt like hell, especially whenever he took a breath. Worse, his radio had broken in the fall, so he couldn't even call for help. He was going to have to wait until they realized he was missing and organized a search party. Even then, it would take a long time to find him, if they did. And if they didn't? A human being could only live so long without water and Radek didn't have any on him. And even with air filtering through the cracks in the rocks above, how long could the oxygen last? If the rocks above or dehydration didn't kill him, hypoxia would. And Radek didn't particularly care for any of those options.

He wanted to try to be optimistic. Radek knew Lorne and his team would search for him and that they would even get others from Atlantis involved if they failed to find him. But unless there was a serious gap in the landscape above, there was no red flag waving above to alert anyone to the danger of straying from the path. In fact, Radek was worried someone else would fall, too, and perhaps injure themselves worse than he had. He was sure his friends on Atlantis would not give up until they had either found him or his body. But with the pain he was in, his optimism was at an all-time low, and Radek couldn't help but be partially convinced it would be too late. He had days before the dehydration would be a concern, but he had no way to estimate how long the air would last. Probably awhile, despite the fact that he was breathing shallower and more quickly in deference to his aching ribs. The rocks above, though? They were his primary concern and there was no way to tell how long it would be until they gave way, if they did. It might have been minutes, hours, days...or it might never happen. The uncertainty was what was bugging Radek the most.

Perhaps he wasn't going to die, he amended--though the possibility definitely existed. But there was one thing Radek could be sure of. He was absolutely going to lose his mind. It had only been a couple of hours since his fall, near as he could tell, and already he was beginning to feel a touch claustrophobic. Well, maybe more than a touch. The certain death--or at the very least, serious injury--looming overhead surely didn't help his state of mind any.

Radek closed his eyes and tried to think of something comforting. His mother had a saying she had often offered her children when times got tough and while Radek remembered the gist of what she'd meant, he struggled to recall the exact words. "What was it Mama always said...?" he wondered aloud, even if he was the only one around to hear.

Or not. "_Bez_ _pen__ěz do hospody nelez_?" a cheerful voice offered.

Radek shook his head slowly. "No, don't be ridiculous--wait." Suddenly, it sunk in that someone had answered his question, and not just anyone. He turned to his left, where the voice had come from, but he knew before he saw her who it had to be. "Jana?"

Radek's sister waved. "I think what you were looking for was _co je doma, to se po__čítá_."

"_Ano_, that was it." Radek was still trying to get his head around how his sister, who was still in Prague the last he checked, and who didn't even _know_ about Atlantis, could be down here in this godforsaken deathtrap. The obvious conclusion hit him a second later. "You are not really here, are you?"

"Of course not," Jana replied. "I am, as they say, a figment of your imagination."

Radek rolled his eyes. "I don't believe this."

Jana didn't look put out at all by his less-than-warm reception. "It was your mind that brought me here. Your fear of losing touch with reality is not entirely unfounded."

Radek would have refused to buy into it, except she was sitting there talking to him. "I find it a bit too convienient, is all. Rodney was alone in sinking jumper and he had hallucinations too."

Jana's lips curled into a sly grin. "And he told you about his experience, _ne_? Who do you think put the idea into your head?"

Somehow, it made Radek feel a little bit better to know that his hallucinations were indirectly Rodney's fault. "So why is it you, then?"

Jana shrugged. "You tell me. Why should it not be?"

Radek gave her a look, the exact same kind of look he really gave his sister when he felt she was missing the point entirely. "Rodney got Samantha Carter, his fantasy, in a bikini. I get my sister. You can see where I might feel a little cheated." He definitely would not have argued with Elizabeth Weir in a bikini. Or even...no, best not to go there.

Jana pulled back, and if she'd been real, she would have smacked the back of her head against the rock behind her. "Radek! Honestly." She heaved a sigh. "You men have such dirty minds. I am scandalized."

Radek had been examining the unstable rock ceiling again, but his head whipped around in surprise to look at Jana again. "What, now you can read my mind too?"

"Of course," Jana replied. "I _am_ your mind, remember?"

"Oh. Right." Radek ran a hand over his face. "Very well, then." There was something very strange about not only having a conversation with a hallucination of his sister, but her _knowing_ she was a hallucination and reminding him of it. But Rodney's Samantha Carter hallucination had done the same thing, hadn't she? Yes. There was one more thing he could blame Rodney for. If Radek survived this, it would be a while before he let Rodney hear the end of it. Suddenly, something occurred to him and he frowned at Jana. "Wait, why are you speaking English?" He usually responded in the language whoever was speaking to him used, which on Atlantis, was mostly English, but that didn't explain why his _sister_ had chosen the language.

Jana appeared to consider it. "I don't know. Why do so many cultures in the Pegasus Galaxy speak English?"

Radek had always wondered about that himself--of course he had; this version of Jana was really a part of his mind. "Our linguists have not yet agreed on a theory about that yet. I have always hoped someday we would find something in Ancient database to explain it. But what about you?"

"I could speak Czech if you like," Jana offered.

Considering she wasn't real, Radek didn't think it honestly mattered--until he considered that, if she was speaking Czech, she would be far easier for him to tune out. English, he still paid a little more attention to. "Go ahead."

"Oh, no." Jana crossed her arms over her chest. "If you are going to be tuning me out, I will stick with the English." And thus Radek had an answer for why his subconscious mind had Jana speaking English in the first place. It did not want to be ignored. Radek wasn't sure yet if that was a good thing or not.

Jana perked up and scooted a little closer to Radek. "Oh, but it _is_ good. When your mind is trying to tell you something, it is wise to listen."

Radek shook his head slowly; amazingly, it was the only part of his body that _didn't_ seem to hurt--though if Jana kept answering questions he hadn't asked out loud yet, that might change. "You know, Rodney never mentioned anything about his vision of Colonel Carter reading his mind."

"True," Jana allowed, "but you would not want to be exactly like him, would you? Even when you work together, you follow his lead to a point, but if you have a better idea, you are not afraid to pursue it. Why should this be any different?"

"I suppose." The scary thing, Radek thought, was that her explanation almost made sense. In some bizarre and slightly twisted way, Radek was pleased that his experience with hallucinations wasn't proving to be exactly the same as Rodney's. After all, if it had been done before, he might as well try to make it at least a little different. His glasses had slipped out of place, and he nudged them back up on his nose out of habit, not that it was going to do him much good. One lens was cracked, and while he could see around that, the light level in the cavern was extremely low--all he had was what filtered down through the rocks. If Jana had been any further away, Radek might not have been able to see her.

Jana moved in even closer, snuggling up against Radek and resting her head on his shoulder, like she had on cold winter nights when they were children. It was amazing, how _real_ she felt. Radek still found that vaguely unnerving, but that part of his brain was overruled by the other parts that had conjured Jana up in the first place. Those parts of him were cold, lonely, and in pain--and they didn't mind the company at all. "Rádá," she murmured, using the diminutive form of his name, "do you sometimes wonder how you might have changed decisions you made if only you were able to know the future?"

"What, you mean like if I could have known what would happen today, would I have still convinced Major Lorne I did not need help? Absolutely not." In fact, if he'd known what was in store for him, Radek wasn't totally sure he would have come to the planet in the first place.

Jana made an amused-sounding noise and angled her head back to look up at him. "I cannot blame you for that. But how far back must it go? What if in order to avoid this predicament, you would have had to change your mind about coming to Atlantis? What would you say then?"

Radek would have initially thought the added twist to Jana's proposition complicated the matter, but in the end, it really didn't. As much as he wanted to be safe and warm someplace else, he wanted that place to be Atlantis. "Yes, I can see the danger in such thinking. Once you begin, where do you stop?"

Jana straightened up a little and turned to face him. "I did not say it was dangerous, only interesting to consider. Little things we find of no significance at the time can be much more important later."

She was right, on many levels, but Radek was curious as to what had prompted her to bring up the matter. Considering he was basically talking to himself, the conversation was getting pretty deep. "Why are you so philosophical now?"

Jana shrugged. "We had to talk about something. Do you have any better ideas?"

Radek snorted. "Apparently not."

It seemed that Jana agreed, because she was quiet for a long moment before volunteering, "When you were home last, what was it you went into the attic for, to take back to Atlantis with you?"

Radek would've laughed, but it would have only elicited a sharp twinge of pain from his ribs and more pain was the last thing he needed. Jana wouldn't have known, unless she happened to take inventory of everything stored up in her attic after he left. When their mother died, Jana had stepped into her role as caretaker of the family heirlooms, which included the few things Radek and his siblings had retained from their childhood years. After his last visit home, Radek had been feeling uncommonly sentimental and he told Jana he wanted to take something with him. In her typical style, she told him he knew where the attic was and if he could find whatever he was looking for, it was his. As far as Jana was concerned, as long as the family treasures stayed in the family, she didn't care where they physically resided. "Jana might not know, but you are not truly her and you have proven you have access to my thoughts. You tell me."

"You," Jana declared, "are a pain."

"I am _in_ pain, yes," Radek said, "and you are my only available form of entertainment. Indulge me."

Jana sighed in the most put-upon way possible. "Fine." She appeared to think it over, then gave Radek a look of mock exasperation. "Honestly! After all these years, still you try to keep Paja from me!"

Radek smiled, because he imagined that would have been her reaction in reality too. Paja had been his teddy bear as a child and Radek had been extremely attached to the toy. Naturally, once his sister, three years younger, had been old enough to become mobile, that was the one toy she was always after. When they were little, the bear had been the source of many squabbles, but once they were older, the game of keep-away truly became a game. Radek made and carried out elaborate plans to hide Paja; Jana was just as determined about finding him again. Their brother Viktor had never quite seen the attraction of the game and left them to it, which suited Radek and Jana fine. They had other uses for him. Radek smirked. He'd been halfway back to Atlantis before it occurred to him that taking Paja along stepped the old game up to the next level. He had no plans to mention it until Jana brought the matter up--he wanted to see how long it would take--but this version of her, he could play with. "Try and find him now, Janinka."

She shook her head. "I suppose it is good to know some things never change."

Radek nodded. Despite the pain and danger he was in, his eyelids were growing heavy and he just wanted to sleep. It was probably because of his injuries, the toll they were taking on him, and with that in mind, sleeping might not have been the best plan, but what could he do? A part of Radek feared that if he did sleep, he might dream of being rescued, but then wake up--or, worse, he might never wake up at all. He wanted to fight his fatigue, but it was hardly like he could get up and take a walk around the room or swallow a couple of caffeine pills and hope for the best.

"Remember, Rádá," Jana said softly, "what is at home is what counts."

"_Co je doma, to se po__čítá_," Radek echoed in Czech, remembering the many times their mother had said exactly that.

"Exactly." Jana hugged him gently. "Sleep now. Everything will be fine."

Radek had no trouble complying. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, just to rest before replying to Jana, and he was asleep.

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Radek did dream of rescue, and even as he did, he worried he would wake up and find himself again surrounded by rock. When he did awaken, he heard voices before he opened his eyes to see anything.

"...sedatives should be wearing off soon." Carson? Had Radek hallucinated him too, or was he really home? The lack of pain and pleasant fuzziness surrounding it seemed to suggest the latter, unless Radek's latest hallucinations had convieniently included the good drugs.

Radek risked opening his eyes and sighed in relief as he noted the blurry sights of Atlantis' infirmary all around him. "Where are my glasses?" he managed to ask.

Carson had been standing next to the bed and turned at the sound. "Ah, good--you're awake." He handed Radek a pair of glasses and helped him to put them on. "Your old ones were broken, but Rodney retrieved the spare set from the lab. Good thing you keep them around."

"Yes, is hard to find good shop for replacements on Atlantis," Radek replied. He tried to sit up but quickly thought better of it, even as Carson eased him back down.

"Take it easy, lad," Carson advised gently but firmly. "You've had a rough time of it. You have four cracked ribs--not broken, but you'll feel like they were for a few days yet--and more stitches than I care to remember in your leg. I don't know how in the hell you managed to avoid a fracture, but it was--"

"Cut to all shit?" Rodney suggested, approaching the bedside.

Carson shot him a look. "I was going to say there were crush-injuries, including extensive bruising and multiple lacerations."

"So bruised as hell and cut to all shit." Rodney looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Carson obviously decided this was a battle he wouldn't win. "Aye, that's one of the less eloquent ways of putting it."

"Oh, I can do worse," Rodney assured him.

"Of that I have no doubt." Radek was exhausted, still, but he felt so much better than he had in the cavern that it didn't bother him. "How did you find me?"

"Life-signs detectors, looking for a dent in the terrain, all of the above," Rodney informed him. He gave Radek a serious look, the one that had always meant business. "You were damned lucky the fall or the rocks or both didn't kill you. You were pretty out of it when they found you, but you were saying something about Jana...isn't that your sister's name?"

Radek could sense how worried Rodney had been, only Rodney couldn't say it in so many words. Radek understood nonetheless and he found it touching. "Yes, it is...and it is all your fault." He would explain later--let Rodney puzzle over it for a little while.

"How is it my fault?" Rodney asked.

"It simply is." Radek tried to look smug, but he suspected he was failing miserably. "I will explain later."

"Okay." Rodney obviously had questions, but he didn't pursue the matter, no doubt chalking it up to the drugs and mentally upgrading his estimate of Radek's eccentricity. "Anyway, speaking of your sister, you got a message from her in the latest databurst from Earth." The families of the Atlantis crew had been given an email address set up by the SGC to which they could send messages to their loved ones. It was only another of the many benefits of having regular contact with Earth.

"Wonderful." Radek always loved to hear from Jana, especially since this time, her message would be real. "What did she say?"

Rodney shrugged. "Hell if I know; it's in Czech." He picked up one of the notepad computers from a nearby counter, worked with it for a moment, and set it in Radek's lap, angled so he could read the screen.

Radek read the single line of text and laughed, despite the protest from his ribs. Carson's drugs would take care of that--the amusement Jana's message provided had been worth it.

Rodney frowned, as if feeling left out somehow. "What's so funny?"

Radek grinned. "She said she wants the damned bear back."

Rodney regarded Radek with a confused expression for a moment, then shook his head as he picked up the computer. "Your family is weird."

"Perhaps," Radek allowed, "but I am not yet willing to let you off the hook for putting ideas into my head."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just...get out of here soon, okay? I need you back in the lab." Coming from Rodney, that was nearly tender. "Carson, let me know when he starts making sense again."

As Rodney left, Radek drifted back to sleep, aided by the drugs in his system. When he awoke, he would blame it solely on the drugs that he was considering sending Jana a ransom note for the bear in the next databurst.

_The End_


End file.
